UK Chapter

UK Chapter update November 2009

The UK Chapter was founded by a group of international educators who actively supported AIE since its inception, attending not only the biennial conferences but also creating and fostering network opportunities and partnerships to advance international and intercultural understanding through education.

The Chapter aims to be action-oriented, initiating projects to bring together like-minded people with diverse backgrounds and from different sectors of education in the UK and, by its very nature, worldwide to develop collaborative ventures that enhance the learning of relevant concepts & skills & values and to promote reflection and development on practice in international education.

As such, the UK Chapter aims to complement the global activities of the Alliance for International Education, including mutual collaboration with existing and future AIE regional chapters worldwide.

Our founding group is:

Amin Makarem – Director, International School of London

Richard Pearce – Teacher, International School of London

Andrea Rohmert – CIS Executive Officer, Office of the Executive Director

Kenneth Snowball – Director, Putting it into Practice

Lesley Snowball – Director, Putting it into Practice & AIE Trustee

In addition our Climate Change Challenge project group included:

Keith Allen – Training Officer, International Baccalaureate Schools and Colleges Association

Claudine Hakim – Deputy Head, International School of London Surrey

In addition to this core group, we have several others involved in a supporting capacity, most significantly:

Mary Hayden – Director CEIC, University of Bath

Jeff Thompson – Professor CEIC, University of Bath

Our events have included attendees from European Council of International Schools, International Baccalaureate Organisation, Cambridge International Examinations, Oxfam, Fieldwork Education, Teachers International Consultancy and several others. We have also had the opportunity to meet up with colleagues from the Shanghai chapter a couple of times when they were in London on other business.

Activities so far:

October 2007 - founding group formed

January 2008 - inaugural meeting hosted by International School of London, approx. 40 attendees including groups noted in 3.1 above, as well as members of the Shanghai chapter and several international schools around London. Key note speaker: Jean-Francois Rischard (sponsored by Dr. Pradeep Sarda, Ecole Mondiale, Mumbai).

March 2008 - follow up meeting - Climate Change Project initiated and project group formed consisting of the founding group plus Claudine Hakim (former school head, now a special needs consultant) and Keith Allen (Oxfam consultant and IBSCA training officer).

June 2008 - Climate Change Project open meeting - 14 attendees from international schools, state schools and foreign schools in and around London

September 2008 - Climate Change Project group meeting to plan October Climate Change Challenge

October 2008 - Climate Change Challenge part 1 - teachers and groups of 4 students from 8 different schools attended one-day workshop hosted by International School of London. Key note speaker: Climate Change author Mark Lynas, sponsored by CIS (Guest visitor: Richard Tangye, CIS CEO). Students worked on various activities to raise awareness of climate change in different parts of the world and to create project plan for work to be carried out between Oct and March 2009 (part 1 and part 2).

November 2008 - AIE conference Istanbul presentations:

(i) Climate Change Challenge project (Amin Makarem and Andrea Rohmert)

(ii) Setting up the UK chapter (Amin Makarem and Lesley Snowball)

January 2009 - Project group meeting to plan Climate Change Challenge part 2 - a two-day follow-up workshop scheduled for March 27/28. This meeting was extended to include lunch with several of the AIE Trustees who were in London - Norm Dean, Mary Hayden, Terry Haywood, Jeff Thompson. We were also joined by John Bastable from the UAE chapter.

UK chapter website established (funded by the International School of London)

March 2009 – Climate Change Challenge part 2 – teachers and groups of students (up to 10) from the project schools return to ISL for a two-day workshop. They will bring raw data from their investigations and links with other schools and create (i) a factual power point presentation and (ii) a creative presentation through art, music, dance or drama. Saturday afternoon will be open to parents, visitors, local dignitaries, press etc. This project directly fulfills the AIE mission of ‘bringing together those who are committed to advancing international and intercultural understanding’ – we are particularly pleased to have brought together international schools, UK state schools and foreign schools, as well as facilitating further links between our project schools and other schools around the world.

November 2009 – an open meeting held at the University of Bath included 15 invitees from the organisations mentioned above – the aims of re-engaging supporters who attended the inaugural meeting, encouraging new people to join us, and generating further ideas for UK chapter activities were achieved.

Aims for the next few months: working groups were established to begin planning the following: online activities; cross-sector school visits; mini-conference as a lead-in or follow up to The AIE world conference in Melbourne; establish a contact tree to identify different constituencies involved in international education in its broadest sense within the UK (as potential contacts for the chapter); follow up the Climate Change Challenge project with participant schools to evaluate impact and potential future activities.